"THE BEST BEACHES AND ISLANDS SITE SINCE THE LAST ONE" - the Tilba Tilba Times Tourism Supplement.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Similan Islands

Last visited November 2014

Best beach in Thailand? - Donald Duck Bay at Similans island#8 would go close. This is a nice shot to expand by clicking.Outlook from the viewpoint on Similans National Park Headquarters Island#4I'd visited the Similans twice before but never stayed on the islands so in April 2012 I decided to spend some time at both camp grounds.

The Similans national park islands are located about 70 km
off the northern Phang Nga Province coast, around 90/100km north of Phuket. Khao Lak
is the nearest tourist town, Takua Pa the nearest administrative town.

There are 9 islands (# 1 to 9 progressively north) in the main chain although only 6 are of
appreciable size. Ko Tachai s also part of the Similans national park
although it is some distance to the north (47km from island #9), actually closer to the Surin islands. Ko Bon,
a popular dive location is between the
main islands and Ko Tachi.

A closer look at the main islands and the nearby mainland coast. Note that Google Earth's resolution of the Similans is so poor I can't do the usual detailed GE based map. Click map to expand for detail.

ISLAND #4 – Ko Miang Park Headquarters.

This island contains the main camping area, all the
bungalows and is the most popular daytrip location.

The main arrivals beach (Front Beach) is at the north of the island. All the National Park buildings, bungalows and the camping area are here. Walking tracks lead to a back beach (Small Beach) in the north-east which has a steep offshoot to the View Point - and to Sunset Point and Little Beach to the west. This shot should expand by clicking or double clicking with most browsers.

BEACHES

This is the Front Beach at Ko Miang. I’d rate
this as one of Thailand’s nicer beaches, particularly early morning or at time
of shot – late afternoon after the daytripper crowds have left. I think it is
better than Ko Surins best camping beach, Ao Mai Ngam in that it does not suffer
the low tide blues – water is deep close to shore at all tides. However Mai Ngam does not get many daytrippers. The best part of this beach for fewest daytrippers is the
shaded area near camera which gets plenty of sun earlier in the day but has some
nice vegetation for shade.

The National Park camping area is behind the trees in the near half of the beach. Bungalows are found back from the beach on the far headland and to left of camera. The picnic area is behind those people landing from the boat up the beach - you reach the National Park office, amenities blocks and Restaurant behind there.

This is a nice beach for swimming - the protected fish are curious and tend to follow you in the water.

The azure water off the main beach really impressed me. Those are overnighting dive boats. Some divers sleep on
board – others come in to stay in tents or bungalows. Some okay snorkelling around rocks close to camera and
near boats for non-fanatics.

The back beach at HQ island – this is reached from the
main beach on an easy jungle track in about 10 minutes. It is also popular with
daytripping boats with a similar picnic area in back of the trees. It seemed to
me that there was appreciably more sand on this beach when I visited with the
Poseidon Bungalows' overnight snorkelling trip several years ago – facing west
it woud get the brunt of wet season storm erosion and I think the last few wet
seasons have been pretty good ones storm-wise. At the time of my latest visit
there was little beach at fullest tide.

Small beach. This is only about 100m north of the main
arrivals beach and reached by a short diversion off the Sunset Point track
within 5 minutes of leaving the picnic area/northern bungalows.

This was shot at the peak of the daytripping period – few
visitors found this beach.

WALKS

SUNSET POINT

The track takes off near the lower bungalows at the northern
end of the main beach picnic area - follow the signs.

This is a real nice rainforest walk – signposted at 420m
but seems longer, about 15 minutes. Has some slopes but no heartbreakers –
could just be done in flip-flop sandals. Actually many daytrippers do it in bare feet.

Sunset Point but appreciably before sunset and here looking south to island #3 instead
of west. Note the showers – the wet season south-westerlies had already kicked
in during this late April visit, although there was plenty of sunshine around.

You don’t need to go to Sunset Point for some great
sunsets – this is all reflected sunlight at the main beach, looking NORTH-EAST,
not west.VIEWPONTThis is a 10-15 minute climb, not for the unfit because
it has several really steep sections although National Parks has put up helper
ropes. Note the focal-length of my elcheapo point and shoot camera makes slopes
appear less steep than actual. At one stage you have to go under a big
overhanging boulder.

View is worth the climb. I already show the outlook in the opening shot up-page so I borrowed this pic cocodrilo sent to me from her trip report of her Similans snorkelling trip. That’s the back beach below. On
my earlier Poseidon trip I snorkeled the far islet from the boat – not bad but
pretty deep for surface snorkelers to see much and too far offshore for most
non-boat based people.

NATIONAL PARK HEADQUARTERS

Main entrance from the beach. Administrative office ahead, restaurant out of shot background centre-left. Main picnic area immediately right, camping
area immediately left. Bungalows far left and right on/near headlands. 2 toilet
blocks inland from camping area.

National Park shop adjacent office – very rudimentary
range of things to purchase. Try to bring necessities from mainland.

Restaurant – got very crowded at lunch time with set menu
for some of the daytrip operations. Purchasable food for campers and bungalow
people similar to Surins – mainly overpriced greasy rubbish. Staff were at
least pleasant. Bring a good supply of munchies from the mainland.

There is also a nearby cafeteria with cheaper noodles,
some other snacks, coffee, tea and soft drinks.

Note all National Parks have been booze free for the past
couple of years – bring plenty of Sang Som like this happy camper. Accounts for
camera shake in sunset shot up page.

The cafeteria and the restaurant were the only areas with
good lighting after dark but the mosquitos were feral and despite long trousers
and plenty of repellent I was forced to retreat to my tent – 7pm to 6am makes
for a looong night. Bring mozzie spray to clear entrance to tent before
unzipping.

Mozzies in the toilet/shower blocks were pretty feral
early evening and around morning shower time. Daytrippers tended to make a bit
of a mess there too.

National Park bungalows. These particular ones are on the
far southern headland and at 2000+ baht
for a fan bungalow are poor value. Despite position virtually all had
beach/ocean views blocked by vegetation.

There are also longhouse fan rooms with outside toilets at
1000 – poor value for one or two people but I think they can sleep 4 to 6 so
popular with weekending Thai groups.

Part of the camping area – in total about 3 times the
size in shot. Located under trees just behind the beach but unlike the Surins,
no beachfront positions. Pretty close together but way less crammed in than
Surins #1 camping area. I thought the general layout superior to Surins #1 camping area
but less attractive than Surins #2 at Ao Mai Ngam.

Tezza’s tent. At
570 baht a day including a thin camping mat, sleeping bag and tiny pillow (the rip-off
NP entry fee is included in your expensive boat ticket), extremely poor value.

There is just enough room for 2 people and their gear.

Dumb design – not high enouth to stand up in and side/back
windows could only be zipped up from outside which means if a night strom hits
you have to get wet to prevent wind-blown rain coming in. Not that that stopped
my tent from leaking.

Looks like other tents leaked too.

Some central trees had a colony of bats(dark blobs in pic) who liked to have
a screaming contest around 0530. Surprisingly bat droppings didn’t seem a big
problem although NP had no tents directly under the most highly inhabited
trees. Maybe the little darling save their ablutions to when they are on their
dracular flights at night.

DAYTRIPPERS

Around 1030 every day over a dozen big speedboats and a
few bigger slow boats would arrive packed with daytrippers. Even from Khao Lak
this is a hell of a trip – at least 30 minutes to the pier at Thap Lamu and over an hour in the faster boats. But a lot
of these people were Phuket based. Phuket to Thap Lamu in a van is at least 90 minutes.
Note that the majority of the daytrippers were Russian although Thais increased
in numbers on the weekend - Thais also
like camping and bungalowing on weekends.

I did a daytrip from Khao Lak back in 1997 – I judged the
time taken to reach the islands not worth the effort (and the coral was way
better then), hence my later Poseidon live-aboard snorkelling cruise and this
latest 3 night camping trip.

The main beach at island #4 tended to get pretty crowded until around 1500. At
times there were 3 or 4 boats backed in. Once unloaded they moored offshore. Note that boats were arriving throughout the day - some daytrippers do the more northern Similan areas before coming down here.

FIRST IMAGE REMOVED ON DIRECTION OF GOOGLE. GOOD GRIEF, WHAT SORT OF WORLD DO WE LIVE IN WHEN READER WOWSERS CAN DICTATE WHAT WE POST AND VIEW?

Russian daytrippers are good value. Many of the men
are big beefy blokes with tiny speedos or those silly things which look like racing cyclists ‘skin’
shorts. The girls tend to be pretty hot and wear outrageous swim-wear,
although I maintain only an outstanding bum can get away with a thong-bikini
(see babe foot of this page – forget the tramp-stamps, she has the fundamental down pat).

Russian girs must wanna-be Playboy models because they all do the glamour poses as above. I guess that
beats the star jump or the v-sign so popular with western tourists, although
the old fashioned stand and smile as seen at the foot of the page here seems
okay to me.
ISLAND #8 Ko Similan

My original intention was to camp for a couple of nights on Ko Similan after my stay at the National Park HQ at island #4 but my visit was so late in the season that the camping area at #8 had already been closed down. Nevertheless my transport back to the mainland put in here for a few hours as part of its daytrip itinerary so I was able to refresh my impression from two previous visits.

As we cruised into Donald Duck Bay what struck me was the
large number of viewers high on the viewpoint - click (double?) to expand shot, there's gotta be a hundred people up there.

Fortunately by the time I got there the masses had
thinned a bit. Viewpoint path takes off in the picnic area just behind the
beach and is well sign-posted. It is not a particularly difficult climb although the sharply dimpled granite is a bit tough on soft bare feet. Try to bring some sandals or joggers onto the beach from the boat.

The view is not shabby once you get up there. I regard
the beach at Donald Duck Bay one of Thailand’s best. Sure gets crowded when the
daytrippers hit it (and this is at the
end of the season) – for a shot of it after the daytrippers leave, check the one immediately below taken on my Similans live-aboard snorkelling trip (although being just
post-tsunami, there were no campers either – unlike the main camping beach at
#4 this one has a westerly aspect and was devastated by the wave).

Water tends to be crystal clear and all those rocks off
the beach attract a good array of fishies. Note that when the tide drops the
boats can’t get all the way into the beach. On exit my group had to wade out over
those rocks – predictably I went head over turkey – but as I had predicted that I
had my camera in a sealed double plastic bag so there was no damage apart from a
banged big toe.

This is the camping area at #8. Considerably smaller than
at Park HQ. Apart from the one far background National Parks has packed up all
the tents which is a good idea how wet and windy the coming months can be.

Similarly the National Park restaurant had already shut
down. A lot of the daytrip boats actually come to #8 before they visit Park HQ
but it seems none have set meals arranged with this restaurant – there is a
fair sized picnic area to left of shot. I remember having a pretty nice
luncheon there on my first visit – a daytrip in 1997.

SNORKELING

The Similans are known for some of the best snorkeling in
Thailand. I was fairly impressed when I did my liveaboard snorkelling trip on
Poseidon Bungalow’s boat a few years ago. However global warming has really
knocked the coral about and on my latest trip the 3 areas I snorkeled from the
daytrip boat I used for transport were very ordinary with lots of dead or
bleached coral and not a big array of
fish. Very similar to the Surins maybe 60km further north when I visited the
same time last year.

One thing about the Similans is that the “best” stuff is
not accessible from the beach – a boat is needed. National Parks puts on a 150baht
snorkeling trip from Headquarters but seeing I had already snorkelled 3 of the locations this latest visit, I didn’t
bother. I’m sure the underwhelming experience of a similar NP snorkelling
excursion in the Surins last year contributed to my lack of interest.

But novice snorkelers will probably enjoy the Similans
even in current conditions. The turtles at island #7 (see pic below) produced
appropriate excitement within my group and even I was impressed with the
numbers, size and curiosity of the fish just off the main Headquarters beach.
That clear water was gorgeous too.

To see some nice underwater pix of Similans coral and
fish in good times check out the TRIP REPORT cocodrilo did for me here. Below is one of her shots:

Snorkellers prepare to check the scene off island #7

Even though the coral is currently crap at this former
good section of fringing reef, island #7 is known for turtles. I think they
hang around for handouts because several appeared soon after our boat arrived.
One at bottom left is not real clear - below is a much better shot from
the same location taken on my Poseidon tour.

GETTING THERE

It is not inexpensive accessing the Similans. National
Park supposedly has a slow boat which runs from Thap Lamu south of Khao Lak (3
hours one way, 1500baht return in 2012) but in reality this stays tied up in
less busy times. This means you have to arrange transfers with one of the
daytrip companies. Actually they can arrange the whole lot - very popular are one night visits where you basically
do the daytrip and are left overnight on the island with a choice between tents
or more expensive bungalows.

I didn’t arrange the whole package with my transfer speedboat
outfit because I originally wanted to spend 2 nights at HQ and 2 nights at
island #8, using the National Park’s longtail transfer between the two islands.
So I simply arranged transfers out and
back – but being a daytrip boat I got to visit the same places as the
daytrippers although spread over two days.

Costing is interesting – my outfit late in the season was
charging daytrippers 1750 (I think some big time discounting was going on,
another company was charging 2200 so shop around particularly late or early in
the season) but they quoted me 2400. The reasoning here is that I take a seat
away from a potential customer on 2 days (out and then when I’m coming back)
and should pay more.

Fair enough, but I’m a big one for the deal so I flashed
2000 (I believe in that old adage: SHOW ‘EM THE MONEY!) which was accepted.
That 2000 was not supposed to get me any of the tasty luncheon on either day
but the National Park canteen food was so bad that on my exit day I hung around
my outfit’s picnic tables like a hungry puppy after everyone else had been fed
and they invited me to raid the buffet. Medsye has really tasty grub.

Note that this late in the season (the park closed a week
after I left) the first speedboat operator I approached was reluctant to take
me on – the argument being that with fewer customers they might not come out
the day I wanted to return. They suggested I go look for one of the bigger
multi-boat operators. So it was simply a
matter of finding a travel agent who dealt with a multi-boat company. Medseye were running 3 boats each day I so used
them.

Note that a surprisingly large amount of the daytrippers
actually originated in Phuket so it is quite possible for island stayers to
arrange the whole thing from there. One
German guy I talked to said he got a one night camping package for himself and
his girl for around 6000 baht. I suppose that is not bad value seeing the
popular Phuket beaches are such a haul from Thap Lamu. But what time in the
morning does the shuttle to Thap Lamu leave?

One place which books Medseye is Khao Lak William tour
service in central Khao Lak township (ocean side of main road just near the bus
stop).

All the speedboats used these days are big fast
multi-engine jobs. These can seat around 40 passengers. Note the bow seating
area is not a comfortable place on rough, choppy days. Plus the sun can crisp
you up pretty nicely.

Operators will pick you up from your Khao Lak area hotel around
0730-0800 and transfer you to the pier area at Thap Lamu about 15km south of Khao Lak
township. There they have a basic breakfast of toast and coffee at their office
and issue snorkelling gear. The trip each way takes about 90 minutes.

Some boats take in Island #7 and HQ at #4 first and then
snorkel island 9 and visit Donald Duck Bay at island #8 – others do the reverse
itinerary. Just as well – if they all arrived at the same place at the same
time, chaos would reign.

Water, soft drink, fruit and sweets tend to be offered
after each snorkelling session and on the long trip from/back to the mainland.

Seasick tablets are available for the queasy and there is a reasonable first aid kit on board. There is an on-board toilet and plenty of life jackets. Poor swimmers take them when snorkeling.

ARE THE SIMILANS WORTH IT?

Staying on the Similans didn’t overwhelm me – transfers
are long and expensive, the National
Park staff are offensive, the tents, bungalows and the food outrageously
overpriced and a lot of the latter was rubbish. Currently the snorkelling is
disappointing. There is not a big variety of walks or activities. But I am an island freak whose ambition is to stay on every
Thai island within my budget and I was
aware before I went that the coral was still in bad condition.

So YES, they are worth visiting if you are an island
freak like me, a novice snorkeler and/ or like gorgeous beaches and clear
water.

NO if you are a snorkelling enthusiast who is used to
very good locations – wait a few years until the present warming/bleaching
session passes. And I think snorkelers get much better value from Poseidon's live aboard trip.
And NO if poor value for
money, rude staff, poorly designed tents etc upsets you.

I really think the best way to visit with on-island accommodation would be to organise
an overnight stay on the island with one of the daytrip operators. Or maybe one
night on Headquarters island and another at #8.

WHICH IS THE BETTER – THE SIMILANS OR THE SURINS?

Coral and fish conditions seemed about the same although
I don’t remember lots of medium sized fish near the beach at the Surins’ Ao Mai
Ngam. I did see a nice baby shark.

When the coral recovers it will be possible to snorkel a
pretty good reef drop-off at Ao Mai Ngam. You need a boat trip for the same
type of stuff in the Similans.

Ao Mai Ngam is a sweet beach, one of Thailand’s better
ones, but the main beach at the Similans HQ island is another step up – no low
tide blues for a start and the water seemed clearer and bluer. Donald Duck Bay
at Similans island #8 is better again.

EXCEPT – both Similans beaches get heaps more
daytrippers. For people-watchers like me this is a plus, but maybe not for you.

The Surin's Ao Mai Ngam is a class beach but can't match either Front Beach at Similan's#4 or Donald Duck Bay at Similan's#8

Landscape/seascape at both Surins and Similans are equally attractive.

I think the Surins’ camping area at Ao Mai Ngam is better than at HQ Beach in the
Similans (although the alternative Surins’ arrivals beach camping area at Ao
Chong Kaad is really cramped and crammed). Ao Mai Ngam is divided into neat little
sections, has a greater number of toilet blocks which always seemed clean and
has the possibility of beachfront camping sites although only for a limited %. Then
again it had more pains in the bum long-term campers who thought they owned the
place when I visited.

I didn’t think the bungalows were superior at either site
but the Similans has more. I think camping enthusiasts will enjoy the Surins' Ao Mai Ngam more.

Restaurants were
dire at both locations but the Similans’ HQ beach one was slightly better.

National Park staff were equally rude.

The Similans has considerably better walks and viewpoints..

Overall I’d give it to the Similans.

WHEN ARE THE SIMILANS OPEN?
I got this from Wicked Divers' website. I lost the url - Google will find it:
" The "official" dates were November 15th until May 15th of each year. During the period when the park was closed, dive operators and fisherman were able to pay a "fine" equivalent to the park fee, but only in cash and only to the park rangers. This year things have changed. With a new director of the park and staff who seem to care, it looks like the park will be closed until November 1st."

I'd suggest you check the Thai National Parks website to see when it is opening/closing at the time of your visit.
-----------------------------
If you are interested in the Similans you might also consider:THE SURINSKHAO LAK

PEOPLE CONSIDERING DAY TRIPS TO THE SIMILANS - I did a day trip out of Phuket in November 2014 - there is a report HERE

-------------------------IF YOU SEE MISTAKES OR HAVE EXTRA INFORMATION PLEASE POST BELOW.IF YOU HAVE A QUESTION, PLEASE POST IT IN THE FORUM - I DON'T CHECK THESE INDIVIDUAL ISLAND PAGES VERY OFTEN BUT I TRY TO CHECK THE FORUM MOST DAYS WHEN I AM NOT TRAVELING.BACK TI BEACHES AND ISLANDS INDEX

Woww!!! nice trip. If you can’t decide for your next trip…Phuket is the best choice for you!!I love here Surin Beach Hotel This hotel is very nice clean and the people are friendly. VERY nice hotel with helpful staff.And I really love white sand, crystal clear waters at Surin Beach too.Thank again.

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